1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hinge, and more particularly to a hinge for foldable cellular phones.
2. Description of Related Art
Small hand-held electronic products such as cellular telephones, PDAs, electronic dictionaries, games, etc. have become very popular. Many of the small hand-held electronic products have a base and a cover. Besides protecting buttons on the body, the cover has a display mounted on an inside surface, and wires connect the display to the body. A hinge is pivotally connected to the cover and the base, and often has a spring to provide a torsional resilient force to open the cover of the electronic device. When the cover is closed and latched, the spring has a torsion force so the cover will open when the latch is released. The conventional hinge for a cellular phone has the follow shortcomings.
When the cover of the cellular phone is flipped open or closed quickly and often and the hinge does not have a buffering feature, the wires between the cover and the base will fatigue and break. When the wires connecting the display to the body break, the cellular phone must be repaired or replaced.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provide hinge for cellular phones that have a buffering feature to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problem.
The primary objective of the present invention is to provide a hinge with a buffering feature for a cellular phone particularly a small hand-held cellular phone with a body, a cover and a wire connecting a display in the cover to the body. The hinge in accordance with the present invention comprises an inner sleeve, an outer sleeve and a spring. The spring is mounted between the inner sleeve and the outer sleeve and provides a torsional resilient force to position the cover and the base. The inner sleeve has an outside surface, and the outside surface of the inner sleeve is coated with a layer of buffering gel to reduce the opening rate so operation of the hinge will not cause the wire to fatigue and break.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.